Translations of 46 short articles comprising a collection of Vargas Llosa's writings from early 1960s-93, chosen for their diversity of topics. Presented in chronological order with some grouped thematically; political and literary development stressed.

Contents:               

The country of a thousand faces -- When Madrid was a village -- Chronicle of the Cuban Revolution -- In a Normandy village, remembering Paul Escobar -- Toby, rest in peace -- P'tit Pierre -- Hemingway : the shared feast -- A visit to Bunuel -- Luis Bunuel : a festival of excellent bad films -- Simone de Beauvoir : Les belles images -- Sebastian Salazar Bondy and the vocation of the writer in Peru -- Literature is fire -- Literature and exile -- Socialism and the tanks -- A visit to Karl Marx -- Joyce's Dubliners -- The other Oscar -- Doris Lessing : The golden notebook -- Letter to Haydee Santamaria -- Albert Camus and the morality of limits -- Bataille or the redemption of evil -- Sartre, Fierabras and Utopia -- The mandarin -- Isaiah Berlin : a hero of our time -- Faulker in Laberinto -- William Faulkner : the sanctuary of evil -- John Dos Passos : Manhattan transfer. (Cont'd) The world cup, Spain 1982. The story of a massacre -- Freedom for the free?. Nicaragua at the crossroads -- My son the Rastafarian -- The trumpet of Deya -- Botero : a sumptuous abundance -- Szyszlo in the labyrinth -- Degenerate art -- A fleeting impression of Vaclav Havel -- Swiss passion -- Letter to Salman Rushdie -- The 'People' and the 'Decent people' : on contemporary Peru -- The death of Che -- Nations, fictions -- Saul Bellow and Chinese whispers -- Visual contact -- The penis or life : the Bobbitt affair -- The truth of lies.